Aesthetic
by raedbard
Summary: SLASH: A series of short pieces examining the sensory world of Toby and Jed.


**Title:** Aesthetic  
**Author:** Raedbard  
**Fandom:** _The West Wing_  
**Pairing:** Toby/Jed  
**Rating:** Soft R  
**Word Count:** c. 900  
**Disclaimer:** I don't pretend to be Aaron Sorkin or John Wells. I just like to borrow their characters and make them do morally reprehensible things to each other.  
**Timeline/Spoilers:** Various timelines, no spoilers

**Summary: **A series of short pieces examining the sensory world of Toby and Jed.

**Aesthetic**

Perfume

There are days now when Toby wonders if he can enter the Oval Office at all. The huge, strange room on hot days when the traffic through to the President is slow and light, contains pockets of air filled with Jed's cologne. The same smell now hides in traces on Toby's shirts and the knots of some of his ties, reasserting itself now and then - arising from a casual movement of his head, swiftly stopped. Toby cannot halt the reactions that the scent provokes and so he hides behind his notes, sits restless in his chair. He will not look at the President, but Jed takes care of that for him, asking him to stay and close the door on the West Wing. The air shifts around him when he comes, heightening the arousal which Toby is desperate to hide with his shuffles and papers. Jed just smiles at him. His hand rests on Toby's arm for a moment - soon gone - but Toby finds the scent still there as darkness falls.

Sacred King

Jed's is the body inviolable: not to be touched by man and certainly not by this man, in this bed. He is always nervous of Jed's body, his hands twitch where they would usually stroke and are no use to him. So Toby uses his mouth to touch him, thereby committing a higher kind of treason. He has his favourite spots and they are all of Jed's choosing because he figures that he ought to be asked to be doing these things to this man. Jed never asks with words, only with his eyes and the pressure of his fingers in Toby's hair, the gentle pass of his thumbs across Toby's neck. Toby allows him every liberty without any comment and accepts that part of the price for his pleasure is choice. He minds less than he imagined he would.

Panegyric

He enjoys, though he would never admit it, the poetry of the thing, and the man in his bed - his hair now fading to a grey which makes his skin seem a bright flush - is now too precious a subject to misuse words on. These days Toby writes the speeches, the big speeches, with Jed's body in his mind. He cannot help it, and sometimes it even seems to help; private silence giving public words a different, powerful cadence - for him at least. So now the words which balance between them once back in bed must be choice aphrodisiacs, for which names serve better than any other word either of them can think of. Toby never quite gets used to the sound his name makes in Jed's mouth just before he comes - caught in a shallow breath and lost in the heavy air - nor the quiet monosyllable of his President's name in his own mouth. He dares not say it and yet he must. So he remembers that the low slip of the word from his lips makes Jed arch up to him in a perfect reveal, and that starts the slide.

Consummation

The first time they kissed, Toby was sure that he would become addicted to the light, fly-away taste of his President's mouth. It dissolved on his tongue but stayed on his lips; he returned to the spot that Jed sucked on the next morning and found him still there. It shouldn't have surprised him that a man like Jed would be an enthusiastic kisser, but it did - and does. Now he's had a little time with the problem Toby thinks perhaps he's just surprised that it's him that Jed kisses with so much pleasure in the act. His fingers always find Toby's mouth first, open and unsure. Jed whispers to him and his words taste of joy to Toby who, after he'd had a while to think over the first few times, now just lets them hold him still in the sunlight.

Exhibit

He had never thought before to find a man beautiful, and certainly not a man like Jed Bartlet, who is too close to some of the things that Toby dislikes about himself. But the idea persists. It bothers him a little but not prohibitively, and every time he turns tangled in their sheets and finds Jed - his cheeks full of a sleepy, satisfied blush - Toby falls a little further. They must look ridiculous together, that much he knows: two old fat guys filling up the huge master bed in the Residence, their bulk too much for the fine linens. He closes his eyes to forget the image when Jed touches him but keeps them open when it's the other way about, learning again lines and planes that he'd never thought of in himself. He finds beauty in the low curve of Jed's belly and the tender part of his throat, and it is more than enough.

Aesthetic

They can't spend more than a few days in each other's company without descending into at least one argumentative interlude. That these arguments always concern high, intangible things makes no difference to either of them. They leave Toby breathless and blushing; Jed dismisses him with the swipe of two fingers through the air and Toby makes himself small and silent, because it's the only way he knows, and the only way to end that won't end everything else. Jed tries not to let these heavy words weigh on them but Toby thinks they both know that the effort is not enough and that tomorrow, or maybe the next day, some kind of end will be reached.


End file.
